Cop nabbed for illegal sale of rifles in Cotabato City

COTABATO CITY — Agents of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) clamped down a policeman after selling to them two M16 assault rifles in an entrapment operation in an interior area in Cotabato City on Wednesday.

Lt. Col. Ariel Huesca, regional chief of the CIDG-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Thursday that they are supposed to prosecute the policeman for violation of the Republic Act 10591 or the "Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act" that outlawed sale or possession of firearms, ammunition and explosives without authorization from the Philippine National Police.

Huesca asked reporters not to identify, in the meantime, the policemen, who is a master sergeant, while efforts to locate his accomplices in his gun-running activities are still underway and pending the filing of formal criminal charges against him.

The suspect, assigned at the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao del Norte, was immediately arrested after selling to CIDG-BAR agents two M16 assault rifles for P160,000 in a clandestine tradeoff in Barangay Rosary Heights 13, Cotabato City.

Senior police officials told reporters that the suspect has been a policeman since he graduated from a basic recruitment course at the training school of the then Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or PRO-ARMM in 1995.

The PRO-ARMM became the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region after the enactment into law in 2019 of the Republic Act 11054, the charter of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Huesca said the suspect is now locked in their detention facility at the PC Hill in Cotabato City.